Bodies Grow Slowly & Die Quickly: A Carmilla Fic
by smacgregor1996
Summary: Takes place following Episode 35. Everyone's significantly shaken by recent events, for good reason. Sad!Laura and a little bit of Zeta Society.
1. An Epilogue

She hasn't slept.  
She hasn't slept in days, her cheeks have grown paler than before, almost gaunt. There is a stirring in her stomach, a rot, like rats gnawing at her innards, and she shakes too much. Perry stays with her sometimes, through the night. Perry, with her soothing voice and her hand on Laura's hair, stroking, smoothing.  
"It'll be okay," she tells her. "It'll get better."

It's a valiant effort, trying to comfort her, but the lilt of her voice seems rehearsed somehow, hollow. Like something she's seen on tv or read in a book. It isn't... it's not the _wrong_ thing to say, but it doesn't help. It echoes against her ears like the sound of distant drums.  
Nothing helps. Not Perry's voice, not the sleeping pills Danny left or the DVDs LaF left with the tagline "escapism works sometimes." Nothing.  
This is a void that can't be filled right now, Laura thinks. She wonders if it ever will be.

Danny doesn't fare much better. Not... not in the same way, obviously, because god, she _hated_ Carmilla, even if it was stupid and petty and jealous, she did. But... but it's strange, you know? Strange how someone so infuriating and sarcastic and alive can just... _go_. Just leave.  
She has to hand it to the girl though, she certainly went out in a blaze of glory.

Kirsch comes over now, and with surprising frequency. The Summer Society girls eye her warily when she leaves with him, something about the ingrained rivalry and the fact that, hey, isn't she supposed to hate this guy? But she finds his company comforting somehow.

His cast comes off a few weeks later, and it's about this time when he asks her, in the softest voice she thinks she's ever heard him use, if they can go, you know, play some basketball, grab some beers? And of course she says yes, and of course she beats him because she isn't going to go easy on him just because they're friends now (_Friends?_ She tastes the word on her tongue and it feels... it feels good).

"Shouldn't have expected anything else," he says, smirking, dribbling the ball away from the designated court. He, too, can see the curious eyes that fall upon them. Summer Psycho and a Zeta. He imagines it's a surprising sight to see.

"'Course," she laughs, but her smile is tinged with darkness, and he thinks he knows why.

"Little hottie'll pull through," he tells her, nudging her shoulder. "It'll take time, sure, but, you know, like that one movie says... keep going forward, y'know?"

"It's keep moving forward," she corrects, though not unkindly.

He shakes his head. "Yeah, that. Life... life is harsh sometimes, but we fought the good fight, you know, and we won, and that's what Carmilla would've wanted, right? I mean, it doesn't make things better, but it... kinda takes the edge off, I think?"

"Yeah," she says. And to her, it does, but then, to her, this isn't the same. Though she hates to admit it, Laura loves... _loved_ Carmilla. It's different. The 'good fight' doesn't come into it at all.

"Life is way too short, even for a vampire."

At some point, they head over to the Zeta's, crack open what Kirsch affectionately calls the 'Tomb' (a forgotten room just left of the bathroom) and pull out a crate of beer.

Kirsch chugs his in one go. Never upstaged, Danny mirrors his actions.

"Woah." This, from a wirey Zeta at the top of the stairs, looking down on them in sheer awe. "Sorry, uh, do you guys want some privacy?"

Kirsch gives him a funny look. "Just grabbing a beer with a bro." It seems too defensive, the way he says it.

"Yeah, man, sure." The Zeta gives him a thumbs up and a raised eyebrow. Kirsch blushes red as the sun at dawn.

At some point, she falls into a disturbed slumber, more out of sheer exhaustion than anything else. She dreams of bright, hungry lights and the girl again... _Ell,_ she remembers softly, the name whispered through her ear like a prayer. Perry watches over her, LaF sitting, a look of worry across their face, at the foot of her bed, as Laura shakes and tosses, her forehead slick with sweat.

More interactions like this, spread across the whole hour and thirty five minutes they linger there, prompt Kirsch to ask if she wants to leave. "Y'know, so they don't..."

"Sure," she says, cutting him off.

She wakes up screaming Carmilla's name and nothing, nothing can calm her for what feels like an eternity. Her eyes water of their own accord, her limbs attempting to flail but, oh, she can't move. She can't move.

"Sh, sh," Perry whispers. LaF clutches at her hand, eyebrows furrowed with concern.

At some point, the paralysis fades and she sits up, sips tentatively at the water LaF places in her hands. "Carmilla..." she says softly, more to herself than anyone else, as she realises this is the same glass (hopefully well-washed) she'd seen her former-roommate drink from. The dryness in her throat doesn't subside, even after the glass is emptied.

Later, they clink beer bottles and sit side by side on a beaten-up bench just off campus, and when he goes to hold her hand she doesn't flinch away, doesn't even protest, simply laces her fingers with his and lies her head against his shoulder, because, and she admits this begrudgingly, he's right.

Life is way too short. And Kirsch... he isn't so bad, really, after all.


	2. She Left Well

"A moment. Just... just a minute, that would be enough."  
She's speaking to the camera again which (LaF thinks) is a good sign. It's normal, relatively. And maybe it's good for her. LaF isn't a grief counselor, far from it, but they remember reading somewhere that talking helps.

Laura's eyes are downcast, like she's shielding them from the rain, as she speaks. She's dressed, at least, and the bags under her eyes are beginning to subside, albeit minutely. It's progress.

"I didn't... If I'd have known how it'd all end, I would have... I would have said something." She chokes up a little, and LaF wants to go to her, wants to make it stop hurting, but they know they can't. This is something Laura's friends can't fix for her.

"As _cliche_ as it sounds," she continues, still staring fixatedly at the desk rather than into the camera, the ghost of a smile playing on her lips, "I was, I think, in love with a vampire. Or... or something like it. I don't know. And of course, like every decent vampire novel I've ever read, it couldn't..." She gathers something within herself, some small semblance of strength or courage, and lifts her head, eyes focussed directly on the camera lense. "It couldn't last. I know that. I'm not as naive as my dad might think, you know. I'm a realist. She would've outlived me by centuries, but..."

"It's okay, sweetie," Perry says, placing a cautious hand on her shoulder.

Laura gulps. "No. No, it isn't. I mean, I know..." She pauses, looking up apologetically at Perry's standing figure. "What I'm trying to say is that I know I couldn't have had it all with Carmilla. There wouldn't have been any big wedding or stupid white picket fence. But none of that would've mattered to me. It _doesn't_ matter. All I want... I would've been happy knowing she was, you know, just happy. Alive and well, and _happy_. That would've been enough."

It's about then that Danny walks in, in the time-honoured tradition of neglecting to knock. Or, not about then. It's about a few seconds prior, when she hears the words "I was in love with a vampire," when she stops, dead, in the middle of the room because she knew, she knew the whole time but it doesn't make it sting any less.  
Still. This isn't about her, or her heart, or how even seeing them together made her feel like her bones had begun to splinter. This is about Laura, and Laura's hurting.

Perry notices. LaF notices. Laura, still staring at the camera, doesn't.

Danny coughs.

"I, um, I came to check on you."  
Laura turns to face her, and Danny can see the dark circles around her eyes, the sickly tint of her skin, the slow healing wounds on her face. And her eyes... they're so...

_Empty_, Danny realises, mildly alarmed.

Later, when even LaF and Perry have evacuated the room ("We should give her some space," LaF suggests, "just for tonight."), Danny takes her leave, still a little shaken by Laura's clear deterioration which, she knows, is understandable, considering what she must be going through.  
Still. It doesn't make it better.

She walks through the campus after dusk, side-stepping around drunken students and high-strung staff. It's strange, really, seeing other people like that, just... _going on_ with their lives. As if nothing happened. As if this were just a normal university, without vampires or sacrifices or girls going missing. Because they don't know.

_And luckily,_ Danny reflects, slowing her pace, _they'll never need to know. Because we won. We won and it's all, it's all because of Carmilla. _

Danny's never been much into religion. She doesn't think it's wrong, y'know, to believe in something bigger. It was just never her thing. And she doesn't know where the church stands on vampires, but she hopes, really hopes, that Carmilla is somewhere good, somewhere safe. She hopes she's happy.

That night, Laura sleeps. Actually, properly sleeps, which is a relief to Perry, who, despite LaF's insistent _she'll be fine_'s, comes to check on her momentarily. Her breathing is slow, rhythmic, her face seemingly peaceful.

When she wakes up, it is midday, sunlight spilling across her face, slivers of gold decorating her bare arms. _But..._  
She squints at the window, nose wrinkled, confused. Is that...?  
She rubs her eyes, clogged with sleepdust, not daring to believe, still half-dazed from the bouts of dreaming. She stands, walking cautiously toward the other end of the room, toward the shadowy formation obscuring the sunlight from filling the small room.  
It is. _It is!_ It _is_.

A black cat, head raised, stares directly at her.


End file.
